Lots of creative juices flowing!

It's been a busy couple of weeks again.  Last week I had a temp assignment at a place about 10 minutes from my house.  $10 an hour, Mon-Fri, 7-3:30 for 2 weeks.  Woo hoo, I thought!  Monday morning I reported to work.  It was a steel factory, very casual.  The office dress was jeans & a shirt.  It looked like they hadn't had anyone doing filing for about 6 months.  I dug right in. By 3:15 Wednesday afternoon, they had nothing left for me to do!  They asked if I would be willing for them to call for me to come do paperwork on a temp basis every month and I said yes.  The temp agency was amazed that I had gotten the assignment done in only 3 days!

This week I have finals - World Culture and the Arts & Algebra I.  I've finished my paper for World Culture & emailed it to my wonderful teacher friend for review.  I'm reviewing for my algebra final and I should be able to take it by tomorrow night. Then I can take Sunday off.  I start my new classes on Monday - Intro to the Exceptional Learner & Algebra II.

Wednesday, the temp agency called me and asked if I would be interested in interviewing for a part time job.  A landscaping agency near us is looking for someone to run the office, occasionally run supplies out to one of the crews.  It would start out at 3 days a week, from 7:30 to ?, for $10 an hour.  I said sure!  The interview went well (I think), they said they had 2 more people to interview that day and they would make a decision by the end of the day.  I talked to the manager at the temp agency today - we're still waiting!  I hope that's a good thing!

In the meantime, I started a new crochet project.  I'm learning to make socks.  The first one went pretty well.  I kept trying it on every so often & it fit nicely.  The yarn I used was a little thick so they were going to be slippers.  Cool, my feet tend to get cold sitting at my computer anyway.  I had problems with the heel, but Carla talked me through it & I finally went to town and finished it up.  When I got down to 24 stitches around, I took up needle & thread and stitched up the opening.  1 down, 1 to go!!

Or so I thought.  Uh oh!! 

The part that Mariah is holding on to is the heel.  I think I miscounted somewhere.

Monday I'm going to go get some sock yarn and start all over!

 I worked on Vickie's RR piece and finished it up today.  I did 4 squares, 1 for each season.  Mine are Hope

the sunflower

the acorn

and the gingerbread man.

And how is your week going??

I Restored My Soul

And then got my heart ripped out!

I had meant to post yesterday about my Hoosier Stitchers retreat last weekend.  We had a marvelous time.  Lots of stitching, relaxing, laughing, good food and comaraderie. Several times the comment was made that we were among family.  I forgot to take my camera, so unfortunately, I have no pictures. On Friday, we dyed fabric.  I had brought a stack of aida for anyone who hadn't brought any.  A couple of the girls took some to try different colors.  The rest I did in nice bright purple, lime green, yellow, red, blue and I will use it for bookmarks.  I dyed 1 large piece in red for a white sampler that I want to do for my niece.

Saturday, some of us drove to an Amish fabric store.  On the way there, we ran into a severe storm with massive rain and hail.  We had to pull over for a little bit until the rain slowed down.  The store itself, since it's on an Amish family's property, has no electricity so it was dark inside.  We were using flashlights to look at the fabric!  It was a very nice store and they had some great bargains.

Saturday evening, we played Dirty Santa.  Everybody brought a grab bag and we took turns either taking a new one from the table and showing what was in it or stealing one from somone else.  It was a lot of fun and eveyone got great gifts.

Sunday, we packed up and went home, each vowing that they were already missing the others and counting the days until our fall retreat.  I dropped Diana off at Fancy Works and got to see the store for the first time.  It was a long drive home, but I had a wonderful time.

I spent the last 2 days getting caught up on housework, homework and applying for jobs.  I called both Office Team and Kelly and neither of them have anything for me this week.  So, I'm spending the week reorganizing Mariah's room - getting rid of clothes and toys that she's outgrown and rearranging everything else.  This morning, I took a break to read emails and read the one that broke my heart. 

Apparently, there was a misunderstanding during the retreat and several of the older members were offended at something that I did because I was told to do it.  Rather than saying something to me and the situation being corrected right then, they sent complaints to the list mom and demanded that I be kicked out of the group.  The list mom, not having been there, only knew that this was a rare happening (they rarely have complaints about anyone) so she stopped it by removing me from the group before ever letting me know anything was wrong.  I understand her position, but I resent the fact that no one said anything to me, the situation was blown way out of proportion because no one asked me why I did what I did.  I will very much miss the group, I spent a good part of the morning crying, but I'm moving on and will not dwell on it.  It would have been nice to have been allowed to explain what happened and apologize for doing something wrong even though I wasn't aware that I was doing anything wrong, but that wasn't the case.  People come & go in our lives for many reasons and apparently there was a reason for these women to allow me into their group for only a little while.

Well, enough of the pity party.  Back to Mariah's room!  And how was your week?

Catching up - again!

It's been a long week again.  My classes are really rough this semester.  I've struggled with algebra all week.  I managed to do the homework, it was the study plan that killed me.  There was one question on there that just locked me up.  Turns out, it shouldn't have been in there cause we haven't covered it yet.  Funny thing is, either everyone else knew how to do it, or nobody else is doing the study plan!

I got a wonderful package from my First Day of Spring Exchange buddy.  Carol sent me a beautiful pattern from Whispered by the Wnd called "Spring Homes", 3 skeins of Threadworx threads (1 for the chart), and a beautiful cameo-style needle minder.  Thank you sooo much, Carol!

I've been working on Carla's model ths week and my denim shirt for my Hoosier Stitcher's retreat.  I should have the shirt done tomorrow.  The model will go with me to the retreat.  It's beautiful, but not a quick stitch. 
I'm also taking my 4 Mill Hill kits from my Crazy 15 project SAL to work on. 

I finished listening to "The Master Quilter"  and now I'm listening to Meg Cabot's "The Princess Diaries".  I also finished "Aunt Dimity Digs In" and now I'm reading "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" on my new ereader.  It'll be so nice to be able to download my textbooks onto it instead of having to lug one around!

The school district hosted a fundraiser last night - Kids' Night Out.  For $15, you dropped your kid off at the high school and the high school students played games and did all kinds of stuff with them.  Mariah had a ball and won a ginormous bottle of bubbles!  I had fixed burgers & mac & cheese for dinner and then taken Mariah to the school. Mommy and Daddy stayed home and watched part of Season 1 of Castle.   For dessert, I fixed chocolate pudding, cut up an angel food cake bar, strawberries and bananas and we ate it all fondue-style while watching our dvds.  Fun night for all!!

Well, time for breakfast and then off to Mariah's swimming lesson!  I only have 5 more sleepies until my retreat!  Yeah!

And, how was your week?